Phil – Mairangi Bay

“The last message I sent was to my daughter-in-law to tell them I was coming for dinner. Her name is Safi and she’s got two children; one coming up twelve, and the other seven. The boy’s quite a good basketballer. He plays for North Harbour on age group, and yeah they’re a nice family.

I was born on the Shore, and I’ve been on the Shore all my life. I played rugby for Takapuna right up to senior level. I had one stint in Auckland’s rep side and in the old days we used to meet at Jimmy Stewart’s milk bar in Takapuna, catch the bus down to the ferry boat, and the ferry boat to the city, trams out to wherever we were playing, whether it was Eden Park, Onehunga or wherever, and went to Milford Primary School, and then onto Northcote College, because anybody north of Shakespeare Road, had to go that way, because Takapuna Grammar was full in those days. The Shore was starting to grow.

I’m coming up 81 and you know with all the technology that’s around now, I thought the fax machine was a wonderful thing; put in a piece of paper and the machine sent it to England and it comes out just as you printed it or wrote it, and since then, of course, emails and, goodness gracious, it just goes on and on and on, and all the kids have got all these iPads and phones. Massive changes.

It’s certainly living a faster pace of life, of course, but you know we used to ride our bikes everywhere when we were kids and it was as safe as anything, but things are not quite the same for some reason.

I mainly stay fit, keep off the drugs, and, you know, really enjoy life. They’ve got good beaches here. A lot of people in America never see a beach. They live in the middle of the country and never get to the coast, and well you can go anywhere in New Zealand. It’s a really nice country.

I go to the gym six days a week, sometimes seven. It just depends how I feel, and that relief from getting out of the house and meeting other people and having a laugh it’s really good. Some people don’t believe I’m as old as I am, but I am.

I did play golf for 48 years; played on single figures most of my life, til I had a stroke. That messed that up. When I was hit with a stroke, I was stuck at home for about six months and I was just about going out of my mind. My wife would go out with her friends to the movies, having coffee. I was stuck at home; couldn’t drive at the time, but I’ve got past all that. I’m back doing things.

I’d had four little ones and I went to the GP every time, and he just said, ‘oh, it’s just the little mini stroke type things’. I got fed up with that, so I phoned the Stroke Foundation and asked them about it; what can I do? They said, ‘as soon as it happens, go to the hospital straight away – don’t go to the GP’.

I was up at the golf club and I was just ready to go out and next minute, whoof it hit me in the head, and I knew what it was. So I said to the guys, cancel me out today. I got my gear in the car and drove from Kaukapakapa to Mairangi Bay – something I shouldn’t have done, but I wasn’t thinking that way. I was wanting to get home and get to the hospital. So as soon as I got home I got hold of my wife and said, get me to the hospital straight away – which she duly did, and sure enough that’s exactly what I had.

It’s affected my left side of my body and the worst part is that I hit the bottom of my heel. I’ve got all the nerve ends and I’ve lost balance. So after I had the stroke I got contacted by AUT physiotherapists. They did a stroke rehabilitation course down there which went for six months, and then they decided to close it, and I thought, what do I do now? I was in the gym one day and I saw a poster and it said Eddie Holloway had a stroke, and after four years going to the gym he was completely cured, and I thought that’s my goal.

I’ve been three and a half years doing it at the gym. [My wife’s] up in Hugh Greens Hospital. She was in North Shore for three months. She had a fall outside Browns Bay supermarket, and since then she’s developed delirium. This is the second fall she’s had; the first one she recovered from very well. She’s suffering with Parkinson’s Disease and has been for 15 years, and then I’d found out where there was a Parkinson’s balance course being run every Tuesday down at Sunnynook Community Centre. So I duly took her down there, and she was doing really well until she had this fall outside the New World supermarket, and got into the hospital. Then she got an infection called ESBL, and since then she developed delirium, and it’s a bit like dementia; they don’t know what they’re talking about and she can’t stand up, but, you know, the people at the hospital in North Shore were really good with her.

They had to put up with a lot; she was getting abusive and, goodness gracious, they don’t know what they’re saying or what they’re doing. So it’s been a real struggle the last three months with her in there, and that’s the beauty of having family around, you know, because they rally around and help you.”

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